Chapter 7 River #3
share much. But she wanted a pillow to sleep on, if nothing else. It had been an exceptionally terrible few days.
River knew what she was asking was . . . loaded, calling back to their long-ago history and all the things they’d never said
to each other.
Celine’s quill fell from her hand. She dropped onto all fours to retrieve it. “Of course not. You’re . . . you’re . . .”
“Dangerous?” River guessed, stopping Celine’s fumbling hand by squatting down and placing hers atop it. She waited until Celine
looked up. Waited until their eyes were locked on each other again. “You’re right. I am.”
“Is that meant to help?”
River picked up the quill and handed it over. “You tell me.”
“Fine,” Celine said, much faster than River expected. “But you’ll be sleeping on the floor.”
River made protests she didn’t actually mean. Because deep in her heart, underneath the layers of protection she wore as armor,
she suspected she would sleep dangling over a pit of vissharks if it meant getting to be closer to Celine.
Celine’s sleeping chambers were smaller than River anticipated.
The floor might as well have been the bed, for the pinrose scent Celine had used in her bath was so close, so sweet, that River felt as though she had her nose pressed into Celine’s neck.
At least from the ground, River didn’t have to continue learning all the ways time had been kind to Celine’s face, or catch the way her nightclothes clung to the glorious fullness of her.
River closed her eyes, fully aware she’d find no sleep. How could she, when everything had gone to such shit? And really,
how could she even think with a woman like Celine once again so near?
In River’s childhood, there had been many nights when her family’s troupe stayed up late to drink and dance, and all River
had wanted was a peaceful night’s rest. For so many years, there was nothing River could do about the constant noise. She
never rested well. But one of the first things Celine had ever told River was that River was always welcome at Celine’s house.
On one particular night, when every muscle in River’s body ached from practicing her tumbling, and her head felt like it might
split open from the beat of the music, she’d politely asked her parents if they could quiet down. Instead of obliging, they’d
screamed at River, then continued their revels.
So River walked to Celine’s house.
She’d told herself she could knock once on Celine’s bedroom window, and if Celine didn’t answer, she would find a comfortable
spot on the ground to rest. It would be no less comfortable than the worn old cot she slept on at the circus. And at least
it would be quiet.
Celine did answer. She was groggy, only half awake, but she opened the window to let River into her room, where River slept on the floor,
much like she was doing now.
As teens, Celine must have understood how vulnerable that moment was, because she didn’t press River on why she’d come. She actually said nothing at all, wordlessly inviting River into her room. Her life.
And every night thereafter, Celine had left her window cracked. Eventually, they did talk, only not about the circumstances that brought River to Celine’s window. River did not want to dwell on those bad things.
She didn’t want to waste her time with Celine in such a way.
They talked instead of their hopes and dreams, with the kind of unbridled optimism only the young possess. Optimism River
had long since discarded.
“Hey now!” Celine called out.
A crumpled piece of parchment plunked onto River’s face.
She opened her eyes to see Celine peering over the edge of her bed. Celine had let down her curls during her bath, and they
dangled toward River in loose, damp spirals, dripping pinrose-scented water onto River’s cheek.
“You promised me answers,” she said, a far cry from the silent understanding they’d had as teens.
River rubbed her eyes. “Right now? I’m quite exhausted . . .”
“Yes, right now! I don’t harbor assassins for free.” Celine made a big show of opening her notebook to a fresh page as she
sat with her legs crisscrossed on the bed. “When did you join the guild?”
“Not long after you knew me, actually,” River admitted. “Pretty soon after I turned seventeen, my parents told me they could
no longer keep me in the caravan, and they wouldn’t let any other circus performers house me.”
Celine dropped her scribely pretense. “What? How could they do such a thing?’
River hesitated. She hadn’t talked about this in a long time.
Ever, more accurately. She’d never discussed her Deathrose beginnings with anyone, not even Vandra.
This was even stranger, though, because Celine knew River’s parents.
Not very closely, of course. Not even River knew her own parents very closely.
But River had brought Celine around the troupe enough that Celine had a familiarity with the players, and combined with the many nights River had snuck in to sleep on her floor, Celine could surely deduce that they weren’t the kindest of folk.
She knew she needed to be careful. And frankly, so did Celine. Meddling in the guild’s business was dangerous. While everyone
in Mythria knew of their existence, the guild relied on mystery to keep its assassins protected. Perhaps if River distracted
Celine with the personal side of things, it would keep her from probing too far into the guild itself. Surely no Mythria Spectator reader would be interested in the sad beginnings of a random assassin who’d recently fallen from grace.
“It all started when I’d finally mastered my standing backflip,” River said. “I’d been working on it for years. I was quite
excited.”
“I remember you working on it,” Celine interjected. “We used to bring pillows into my yard and stack them up, and you’d flip
down from them to practice. You had a ritual before each attempt, where you’d hold your arms out straight to the side and
take a quick, deep breath. You were always so serious about it. I liked seeing you that way.”
“Yes. Miss Memory. Of course.” River cleared her throat. It was strange to be remembered. Her entire profession was about
slipping in and out of the shadows. She’d long since forgotten the ways she used to chase the light. “Anyway, I’d teleported
to my father to show him, and I caught him kissing another performer. Not my mother. Horrified, I teleported to her to share what I saw. But she wasn’t mad at him. She was mad at me.”
River hated how her voice had quieted. None of this bothered her anymore. It was just something that happened a long, long
time ago.
“Now, look, you know better than anyone that my parents were never the nicest people in the realm anyway, but up to that point, they’d mostly tolerated me,” River continued.
“After that incident, everything changed. They told me my powers were too much of a problem. No one felt safe around me, because they didn’t know when or where I might show up.
They couldn’t be sure I wasn’t spying on everyone for fun.
Or breaking into locked rooms to steal things.
They said—and this is a direct quote, so make sure to get this right for the pamphlet—You’re not a person. You’re a weapon.”
“Surely you know that’s not true,” Celine said, her brown eyes bright with sincerity.
“But it is,” River said. “I can go anywhere, so long as someone describes it to me well enough. I can find anyone, so long
as I know what they look like. Even if you hadn’t let me stay in this room with you, I could’ve done it anyway.”
A shadow of concern fell across Celine’s face.
“See?” River said. “It’s frightening. My power is dangerous. And I think what made it even more horrifying for my parents
was that because of the circus, they’d contributed to the problem. Early on, I wasn’t very good at teleporting. I didn’t like
to do it, and I used to wish every night that I could get rid of my gift. It was scary to suddenly be thirty irons high when
all I’d meant to do was find my mom. But my parents thought it might be a useful trick to put into the circus show, so they
forced me to practice. They let the acrobats start teaching me how to tumble at a very young age. That way, wherever I landed,
I’d know how to flip my way down. By making me safer, they put everyone else in danger.”
Celine’s mouth hung open in a delicate O shape.
“I’d heard of the Deathrose Guild the same way everyone else does,” River continued. “Whispered rumors. Our circus traveled to so many places throughout Mythria that when my parents kicked me out, I decided to go where the whispers had been the loudest, and I started asking around.”
Celine had been scribbling furiously, but now she paused, her quill pressed to the bow of her lips. “Is it really that simple?
To join?”
“No,” River said. “Most people get recruited into the guild. They’re sought out because they’ve already adopted a vigilante
lifestyle, or rumors of their gift have reached other members. They didn’t know about me, probably because I hadn’t yet been
put into the circus show, and I’d never teleported anywhere interesting up to that point. But I knew what I could do was valuable,
and I liked the idea of using my dangerous gift for some . . . backward kind of good. So I sought the Deathrose Guild out
myself, and I asked them to let me join. I wanted this life. And I’ll do anything to protect it, because they are the only group that’s ever protected me.”
A single, traitorous tear slid down River’s cheek. She swiped it away before Celine could make a comment about it.
“They don’t seem to be protecting you now,” Celine very unkindly pointed out.
“Something is amiss,” River snapped. “This is not how the guild normally operates.”
“You should just leave them,” Celine whispered. “You don’t have to live like this. You’re capable of so much. We can find
you a new life in Vestriya.”
We. As if Celine and River were a unit. A team.
“That’s enough,” River said, her patience thinned. “I’ve fulfilled my promise to you. You know a little bit about how the
guild operates. I have a place to sleep. Now do me a favor—don’t write about any of this just yet, okay? I need to figure
out what’s going on within the guild. Until I do, we shouldn’t call more attention to ourselves by putting this information
in the scribesheets.”
Celine snapped her notebook closed. “You’re right. It’s time for us to sleep. We can pick this up tomorrow.” She rolled onto her side, blowing out the candle that illuminated the room.
In the dark, the rocking of the ship took on an ominous quality, like the Ghosts themselves were humming. It was almost enough
to dull the horror of all that River had confessed. She should have lied, made up a story. But part of her wanted Celine to
understand that even though she hadn’t killed Galwell, she was still an assassin. Just like the lyricat, River’s nature could
not be changed.
This would be good, she decided, pushing away her anxieties. She could use Celine’s excellent investigative skills to uncover
what was happening within the guild, and in turn, she could ensure they both remained safe while doing so. And she could keep
Galwell safe, too, which mattered to her more than she expected. She’d almost killed him, and he seemed to be a genuinely
wonderful guy.
“I’m sorry your parents didn’t protect you,” Celine suddenly whispered.
It was River’s turn to be speechless. Yes, she’d certainly shared far too much. The last thing she needed was Celine’s apologies
or, worse, her pity.
“Don’t be,” River said.
The past was just that—past.
River would rather focus on the future.